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Monthly Archives: February 2014

Oof, it’s been a while. Not that I haven’t been thinking about Alias constantly – because I have – but I haven’t had the chance to get over here and tell you all what I’ve been thinking. Yay for school breaks. (Boo for school. Seriously. I’m 33. This is bullshit.)

S01E18-19 Recap

In the last episode, Vaughn had an actual idea for once and it was kind of amazing to watch. Who knew the little guy could think! SO. CUTE. AMIRIGHT? Anyways, his idea was that, since Rambaldi’s prophecy said that the horror woman of awfulness who will bring about the end of the world or whatever will have never seen the sun rise over this mountain he thought was super-cool, then if they get Sydney to that mountain and she sees the sunrise, that disproves the prophecy and we can just all get on with our lives. So, they break her out of FBI custody, she climbs the mountain, takes seriously about a single half-second’s glance at the sunrise, then calls the FBI to turn herself in.

When everyone’s back home, Jack tells Sydney that he recently broke into the CIA file room and read about his “dead” wife, only to find out that the CIA had pretty much assumed she’d survived the crash and been alive this whole time. He also found out that Sloane was part of the investigating committee way back when. Jack confronts Sloane, who’s all like whatevs, dude, and so basically, yeah, we’re safe to assume she’s still alive and Sloane’s known about it for decades.

Sydney, always quick with a bad gut instinct, vows to find her. Jack’s all like WHY THE FUCK WHAT DO YOU THINK THAT’S GOING TO DO and damn, Jack, you are sometimes so my favorite.

So, Sydney realizes she can’t talk to Jack about this. As usual when she needs to pout, first she goes to Vaughn, who’s like “ummm….maaaaaaybe don’t talk to me about your mom who killed my dad????”

So, she goes to Sloane. He tells her Jack spent 6 months in solitary confinement when the truth about Laura came out after her “death” and then developed a drinking habit, because he was suspected – like you would be – of conspiring with his wife. Sydney’s like, um, I was alive then and old enough to form clear memories of my father’s presence and behavior, but you know what I pretty much only ever stay focused on me, so this is all surprising. Anyway, Sloane decides to help Sydney and sends her after Khasinau, who it turns out was her mom’s superior officer at the KGB.

Dixon accompanies Sydney on the mission and their contact turns out to be Sydney’s ex-boyfriend Noah, who’s been under deep cover for 5 years. Shit goes wrong and they end up extracting him, which suuuuuper pisses Sloane off. Dixon warns Sydney not to get too involved with Noah until he’s been debriefed and they know if he’s, Idunno, evil now or something? The point is, Dixon is smart and knows that Sydney makes horrible decisions, especially about men, but he’s also not quite smart enough to know that Sydney doesn’t listen and won’t take advice, which is why he’s at SD-6 in the first place instead of the real CIA. For some reason, Sydney gets to watch Noah’s psych eval debrief and we get this whole scene where Noah talks about how much he loved Sydney so she can see him say it but he still won’t ever have to say it to her face which is just weird and awkward and anyway get ready for some more patented Sydney bad decisions is what I’m saying.

Meanwhile, Jack’s kinda gone off the rails and Sydney’s ready to be just the amazing daughter we know her to be.

“Dad, what are you doing here in the middle of the afternoon?” “Day drinking, no doy.”

Sydney could sympathize, give him some space, offer to be there if he needs to talk about his feelings. Or she could get all “who is he to act in a way I haven’t decided he can” and tell on him to his boss so he’ll be ordered to go to therapy. “Telling on you so you have to go to therapy” was a bad thing when someone did it to Vaughn a few episodes back, wasn’t it? I thought it was, but what do I know.

Back at Sydney’s house, which her friends never leave even when she does, Francie borrows (is it borrowing when you just walk into someone else’s bedroom when they’re not home and take their clothes? also, Francie, remember when you refused to borrow Sydney’s clothes because “Thanks, but I have boobs”? No? I’m the only one who remembers what the characters are like from episode to episode? OK. Fine.) a jacket from Sydney, goes through the pockets and finds a ticket from a place where Sydney didn’t tell Francie and Will she was going, and she and Will immediately get all WHY DID SHE LIE TO US??? Then they go to dinner to have a special meeting about Sydney and speculate wildly on why she went to Italy instead of wherever and who she was with and how exactly are they going to confront her – because they HAVE to confront her, I mean, she owes them an explanation of every move she makes – and make her tell them everything, and they even throw in a nice little dose of “if she’s in an abusive relationship, why wouldn’t she just leave?” assholishness for good measure. Ugh. I hate these two. They are the worst.

Well, the worst until Sydney and Peter Berg end up in a cabin in the woods and totally do it, at least. But I’m not a huge fan of “we’re running for our lives, so there’s totally time for sex” to begin with.

Then the bad guys show up and they have to run pretty much immediately. Oh, so maybe I am right on this one. Good.

Once they’re back to safety, Noah asks Sydney to run away with him and live off all the money he’s stolen from the Russian mob. And her only problem with this is that she needs to find her mommy first. No joke. “I have a lot of money I stole from scary bad guys. Let’s ditch the different scary bad guys we work for and go think we can hide from ALL the scary bad guys for the rest of our lives! It’ll be great!” “Sure thing, baby, I just need to go find my scary bad mom first, and then we can totally do this!” This show should have just been called Bad Decisions. Even if Sydney did want to run away with him now, though, that’d be too bad because SD-6 has already become suspicious of Noah’s (true story: I mistyped that as “Nah” and I kind of like that better) financial activities and they take him into custody.

Also Vaughn mentions something about an assassin called The Snowman that K-Directorate has hired to kill Khasinau, but that probably doesn’t have anything to do with Sydney’s shady boyfriend who’s just reemerged from deep cover where no one really knows what he’s been doing the last 5 or so years and is also being played by someone a little too famous to join this cast permanently. So, it’s a totally good idea for Vaughn to send Sydney after The Snowman as a way of getting to Khasinau. Moving on.

SD-6 finds video footage of Sydney’s mom, real name Irina Derevko, being debriefed after Laura Bristow’s “death” and she’s being debriefed by Khasinau and the FBI agent that supposedly died in the same crash. Jack watches the video and makes the Bristow Family Poutface while watching his “dead” wife say things like, “I can tell you one thing: Jack Bristow is a fool,” and BAM! Irina Derevko moves way the hell up my favorite characters list.

Sydney cries at Jack until he gets her boyfriend out of SD-6 jail. He’s able to, somehow, and Nah even gets sent along on Sydney’s next mission because it’s not like she already has a partner or anything.

Will and Francie confront Sydney about how she’s not allowed to lie to them and they need to keep tabs on her at all times. They’re all “Syd, you can tell us if it’s none of our business” (NO SHE CAN’T) and “But we care about you” (NO YOU DON’T). Anyway, she makes up a really good cover story because for once the writers remembered she’s supposed to be good at lying. Whatever. At least we’re done with her asshole friends for this episode.

All the information on Nah’s laptop mysteriously disappears after their mission, and Sloane’s like oh, well, win some, lose some, guess it’s time for you to go back under cover where I can’t keep great tabs on you. Good luck, Nah! You’ve been a stellar employee! Yeah, remember how Vaughn was always telling Sydney that she couldn’t lie to SD-6 about the tiniest thing or withhold any bit of evidence from them because they would immediately be suspicious and have her killed? WHAT THE FUCK, SHOW?

So, let’s just finish this up. Marshall reconstructs the laptop data and Sydney gets sent to find the FBI/KGB guy who’s not really dead but SURPRISE! The Snowman got there first. They fight to the death – he falls on his knife because of course we’re still not going to let Sydney murder anyone even when her own life is in danger – and she unmasks him and OH NO! it’s Nah and there was no way to see that coming and yup there’s the patented Bristow poutface again.

There is just SO MUCH GREAT POUTING in this one, you guys. It’s glorious.

Yay-Boo Analysis

Yay!

Boo!

“Oh, you still live here.” FUCK YOU, FRANCIE, YOU ARE HORRIBLE AND WE HATE YOU ALSO WHY DO YOU HATE CHOCOLATE CHIP PANCAKES WHICH ARE THE BEST

Oh, man, I love a good Sloane-Jack showdown.

How do you meet up with someone you had a significant relationship with not all that long ago and not recognize their voice? The fuck, show, seriously?

Why does Sydney leave anything lying around with such a fucking nosy roommate?

Watching Jack in therapy.

Leaving their particular Alias characters aside, so far Sydney has been stuck for several hours in a woodsy, dimly lit cabin with a roaring fire, having whispery heart-to-hearts with both John Hannah and Peter Berg, and I gotta say, out of the two of them? The one I’d fuck? Is NOT Peter Berg.Bad decisions all around, Sydney.

I will not believe it’s possible to get into leather pants that quickly – and silently – so soon after having sex.

Sloane: “Sydney wasn’t intimate with Tippin. She is with Hicks.”

Jack: “I’m not sure that’s my business. And I know it isn’t yours.”

More wrong music over the “Noah’s free” scene? Honestly, at this point, all the music sounds wrong to me.

Finally, a Sydney-Vaughn showdown that is actually about Sydney being smart and Vaughn objecting on a professional level.

Why does Sydney never pull her hair back before she has to swing upside down for a significant portion of the mission?